GeForce GTX 570 vs Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, which has core clock speeds of 668 MHz on the GPU, and 828 MHz on the 256 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 570		219 Watts
	Difference: 144 Watts (192%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 570 should in theory be quite a bit superior to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		152000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 99008 (187%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 570 will be much (about 311%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		43920 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 33232 (311%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 570 will be much (more or less 174%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		29280 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 18592 (174%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.